Historical and Descriptive Guide Through Shrewsbury

by S. F. Williams

S. JULIAN’S CHURCH.

It is uncertain when and by whom the church was built. It is only certain that it was erected during the Saxon period. It is distinguished in several reigns as a royal free chapel, and is styled “The Church of St. Juliana, the Virgin.” In 1223 Henry III. attached to it the chapel of Ford; but Henry IV. annexed its revenues, with those of St. Michael’s “in the Castle”—a foundation now destroyed—to the new college of Battlefield, “reserving only a small allowance for the minister.” The first structure was Anglo-Norman, but having become dilapidated, was, with the exception of the tower, taken down in 1748. The foundation stone of the present structure was laid in August of the same year. The first service was held in August, 1750. The exterior of the southern side was considerably altered and improved in 1846–47 through the generosity of the late Rev. R. Scott. Opposite St. Julian’s Church, at the entrance of Milk Street, is an old stone building which has seen remarkable changes of fortune. Anciently and originally it was the

HALL OF THE CLOTHWORKERS OR SHEARMEN,

a company which was incorporated in the reign of Edward IV. The feast day was on June 6th, and the apprentices up to the year 1588 used to set up a green tree “decked with garlands gay” before the hall, around which there was great rejoicing, coquetting, vowing, dancing and other festive proceedings. But in 1588 the custom ceased. The “green tree,” or Maypole was not enough. A bon-fire was added, and a disturbance ensued among the crowd. The Rev. Mr. Tomkies, a minister of St. Mary’s, appeared among the excited company, but his persuasions to peace only exasperated them. The Bailiffs were compelled to interfere, and henceforth the practice was discontinued. In the time of Elizabeth six hundred shearmen were employed here in dressing the wool on one side of a coarse material called Welsh webs, which were brought, chiefly from Montgomeryshire, to a market then held every week in the town. The process having been found to weaken the texture of the cloths, the occupation of the company was gone. From manufacturing purposes the hall was turned into a theatre, then converted to a Wesleyan place of worship, then secularized into an assembly room, then elevated into an assize court, then utilized into a shop, and, lastly, transformed into an auction mart. Proceeding up the street we presently see

OLD ST. CHAD’S CHURCH.

The foundation is attributed to one of the Mercian kings who built it upon the site of a palace belonging to the Princes of Powis which was burned down by the Saxons. It was a collegiate church, and had a dean and ten prebendaries. It was partially destroyed by fire in 1393 through the negligence of one John Plomer, a workman, who carelessly left his fire while he was engaged in repairing the leads. Plomer, seeing the result of his thoughtlessness, endeavoured to make his escape, but in running near the Severn was drowned—as a judgment? In consideration of the damage thus sustained Richard II. graciously granted to the inhabitants a remission of their fee-farm rent, and exemption for three years from the payment of taxes upon the understanding that they should re-build the edifice. This they did. In 1547, by order of the bailiffs of the town, the pictures of Mary Magdalene and of St. Chad were removed from the church and burned in the Market Square. On July 9th, 1788, another disaster befell this unfortunate structure. Its decayed tower, shaken by the vibrations occasioned by the chimes, suddenly fell down, and crushed the nave and transepts into fearful desolation. Some masons who were at work upon it fortunately escaped. The church was restored in 1796. The interior, which contains a number of monuments, one to the memory of the celebrated Rev. Job Orton amongst others, has recently been improved and modernised. In the churchyard several members of well-known county families have received interment, such as Lyster, Vincent Corbett of Moreton Corbett, Hugh Owen, M.D., Mytton, Burton, Ireland, Dr. Rowland Lee, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry and Lord President of the Marches, and Captain Benbow, the officer who was shot in 1651. Benbow’s grave is at the end of the pathway adjacent to Belmont.

It was in this church that the dawning light of the Reformation first beamed in Shrewsbury. That light gleamed in the preaching of William Thorpe, an ardent follower of Wickliffe. He denounced the dogmas of the Romish Church with the fervour common to the early Reformers. For his preaching he was confined in the prison here, and then removed to London to be examined by the archbishop, who, it is conjectured, granted him his liberty.

At the south-east of the churchyard up to the year 1858, stood or rather were propped up and made to stand, St. Chad’s Almshouses—worn, ruinous cottages, which served admirably for the purposes of animated nature. They were founded in 1409 for old men and women by Bennet Tupton, a public brewer. The following story, relative to Mr. Tupton and his daughter, is interesting:—“This yeare, 1424, and in the second yeare of King Henry 6th, one Bennet Tupton, beere brewer, dyed, who dwellyd in a brue house in St. Chad’s Church Yard in Shrewsbury, which afterwards was, and now of late days is, called the Colledge,” and was buried in St. Chad’s Church. “He left behynd hym a daughter of his namy’d Blase Tupton, who came by chance to be a leper, and made the ‘oryell’ which goeth along the west syde of the sayde church yard, and so came aloft to hear service through a door made in the church wall, and so passed usually upon the leadder unto a glass window through which she dayly saw and dayly hurde servys as long as she lyvyd.” The houses were demolished in 1858.

From this church we turn down a passage on the right hand side of the street, called now Golden Cross Passage. Formerly it was denominated Sextry Passage, a corruption of Sacristy. The sacristy of the church is supposed to have been situated within it. The “Golden Cross” inn appears to have been a tavern in 1495, the proof being that in that year 13s. 2d. is said in the archives of the Corporation to have been expended “for wine on the king’s gentlemen in the sextrie.”

Emerging into High Street again we walk a few yards down, and on the left hand come to the Unitarian Chapel, which was formed on October 25th, 1691, by the Rev. John Bryan, M.A., ejected from St. Chad’s, and the Rev. Francis Tallents, ejected from St. Mary’s, in 1662, for the use of a Presbyterian congregation. One of the successors of the founders was the Rev. Job Orton, who ministered from 1741 to 1766, when he removed to Kidderminster. Shortly after his removal a secession took place, which resulted in the formation of the Independent Church, Swan Hill. That “divine madman,” Coleridge, preached in the High Street Chapel, and Hazlitt walked from Wem to hear him.